212 PHYSICAL CAUSES OF 



blood-poisoning, but all disorders of the blood which affect 

 either its 



a. Movement. 



6. Distribution. 



c. Quantity; or 



d. Quality. 



These conditions of the blood, again, are more or less 

 affected by every form of bodily disease ; while deteriorated 

 or disordered blood-supply in its turn tells upon the brain 

 and nervous system and their functions, including mentalisa- 

 tion, sensation, emotion, no less than motility. Haughton 

 attributes the venomous and rancorous disposition of certain 

 animals to imperfect oxidation of the blood ; just as dyspep- 

 sia, by leading to defective assimilation and improper quality 

 of blood, is in man an acknowledged cause of spleen and 

 irritability. According to the author quoted, imperfect 

 blood-oxidation gives rise, in other animals as in man, both 

 to intellectual and moral defects. 



Of the causes of gradual Uood-deterioration, one of the 

 commonest and most familiar in other animals, as in man, 

 is dyspepsia, habitual indigestion. Lowness of spirits is a 

 frequent accompaniment or sequel in the one case as in the 

 other. All digestive disorders, every derangement of the 

 important functions of assimilation and nutrition, all diseases 

 of the stomach or intestines, may lead to what is usually 

 spoken of technically as sympathetic or symptomatic in- 

 sanity, just as they produce also various secondary bodily 

 diseases, such as convulsions in young cattle. Cerebral con- 

 gestion and all its causes anaemia and plethora, ichorsemia 

 and septicaemia may, more or less directly, produce morbid 

 mental phenomena in other animals as in man. Reproduc- 

 tive derangement is a common eccentric cause of sympathetic 

 mental disturbance. Panphobia is sometimes the result of, 

 or at least it is intimately connected with, organic lesions 

 mostly thoracic or abdominal. Thus it accompanies heart 

 disease, as in man. 



By some veterinarians rabies and distemper in the dog 

 are regarded as blood diseases. Whether they are really so or 

 not, in both disorders, and especially in rabies, there is a well- 



